


Döden går tyst i skogen [Death walks quietly in the woods]

by W_S_Barret



Category: The Ritual (2017), The Ritual - Adam Nevill
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Black Metal, Boreal Forest, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death(s), Escape, Grief/Mourning, Hel | Hela (Norse Religion & Lore) - Freeform, Helheimr | Hel (Realm), Horror, Human Sacrifice, Moder (The Ritual) - Freeform, Murder, Norse Folklore, Norse Religion & Lore - Freeform - Freeform, Old Gods, Pagan Gods, Pagan Rituals, Pagan Sacrifice, Psychological Horror, Psychological Trauma, Ritual Sacrifice, Survival Horror, Sweden (country), Swedish Wilderness, Wilderness Horror, Wilderness Survival, forest, forest creatures - Freeform, norse gods
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:53:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23567884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/W_S_Barret/pseuds/W_S_Barret
Summary: It is not just Moder and her children that live in the forest. The old gods walk there too.
Kudos: 2





	Döden går tyst i skogen [Death walks quietly in the woods]

**Author's Note:**

> Hail, to the queen of death  
> Her shadow walks with you  
> Remember her kind  
> And understand life - Hagalaz' Runedance

Luke is lying on the piss-smelling bed, in that old wooden stuga with the old woman and those crazy black metallers downstairs. His head throbs and he is still covered in blood and dirt from trampling through the woods with his mates. Fuck. _His mates_. He hasn’t thought about them since before being brought here. Dom, and Hutch, and Phil. Fat, lazy Phil who bitched about his feet the moment he had to walk more than a block or two.

He’d never think he’d ever miss the jabs, and moans, and boringness that came with their lives. Now he’d give a lot to just hang out with them one last time. If he could go back, he’d never had agreed to that trip. Maybe they could have instead gone to Vegas or something. Like Dom suggested. Not to this, shitsforsaken forest in Sweden. 

His body is screaming at him, but he gets up anyways. There’s an old mirror in the corner, spotted with age. Luke has to grip the edge of the old wooden table, so he doesn’t fall to the floor. Those insane teenagers are still inside, and he doesn’t want the one called Fenris to come up again. The ramblings about Burzum, Mayhem, Darkthrone, Emperor, and their “band” Blood Frenzy, along with talks of “The Old Gods” weren’t doing his head any good.

From what he can tell from the dirty mirror, he’s worse than he thought. He’s gotten paler, and skinnier; the circles under his eyes have gotten darker too. There’s a tiredness he can see, but not from lack of sleep, from simple exhaustion from all that he had been through. He should get to the bed, and try to sleep. Even with the piss-stink and rough mattress. At least he wasn’t sleeping on the forest floor. Though he’s thinking that he’d almost rather prefer that to what he’s in now.

Somehow he manages to get back to the bed, the linen dress they made him wear rubbing against his legs. Rolling over onto his back, he pulls the thin quilt over his body and tries to fall asleep. He hopes that if he has any dreams then they’ll at least be better than his previous ones. His head hits the pillow, and he passes out.

* * *

Luke is back at the base camp, with Hutch and the others mucking around behind him. He’s staring at a teenage girl, who is kneeling over her own pack, while helping them sort through their shit. She’s got two toned hair, half white half black, but unlike others he’s seen with that type of hair, she’s dressed rather plain. Simple clothes, good for hiking; and the cold. 

He opens his mouth and asks her “So what happens if we cross through the boreal forest? What should we do?”

She stands up and looks at him, her dark eyes staring into what feels like his soul. He feels stripped down and exposed; like he has to fight the urge to cover himself, even though he’s layered up against the cold and rain. There is something not quite human about her, maybe it’s the way she holds herself, or the intelligence that glimmers behind her eyes. But he brushes off the feeling of icy cold running down his spine. 

“Then be careful. The forest does not like people, foreigners especially. If you walk in it will not let you leave; at least not the same as you came in.”

He shuffles away from her slightly and she doesn’t seem to notice. She’s too busy staring off absentmindedly at the forest, the spindly pines pricking the horizon. His mind passes the thought of her not being quite human around again. Again he shrugs it off. 

Another question rises unbidden in his mind, playing on a scenario that he hopes never happens. “What if we have to hunt animals to survive? Like if we get lost.”

She turns around and faces him, head cocked, this time he feels that she’s not staring at him, but his soul. She smiles an odd, twisted, half smile, and the words she says will haunt him long after the trip is over. 

“What are you willing to exchange Luke Richardson? The forest will want something in exchange for the life you take to sustain your own. What are you willing to sacrifice?”

* * *

_“What are you willing to sacrifice?”_

He wakes with a start, sweat soaking the linen dress, despite the cold. Luke knew that what he had just had wasn’t a dream but a memory. Those words echo in his head. He is willing to sacrifice a lot, he has sacrificed a lot, but not his mates. He’d never exchange his mates for that. 

Footsteps sound downstairs, and he idly wonders if the teenagers had left to go and murder another random group of hikers. Maybe. If they did he might have a chance to escape, the old woman would probably not snitch. She seemed just annoyed by their presence in her house. 

He walks to the window and he realizes that the rest has helped his body. A warm light flickers outside and he can see them surrounding a bonfire. The two boys are drunk and trying to out-scream each other while the girl, Surtr he thinks that’s what Loki said her name was, is dancing naked. Something on her body glimmers in the fire light and he can see that she has vaginal piercings. 

Looking past the fire, he sees something in the forest, by the treeline. A figure stands by the trees, almost cloaked in shadows and branches. Luke can see that the figure is female, and he wonders if that is that creature who the teens were talking about. But he can see that her hair is half black, half white. A tight feeling in his chest rises, as he understands that the girl is the same as the one who had spoken to him at the base camp. 

He could tell that she’s not looking at the teens and their weird ritual, but at him, at his soul. Why would she be here? Wouldn’t the teens or whatever else lives in the forest get her and hang her up in the trees like his mates? Like Hutch, and Dom, and Phil?

She smiles that odd half smile, and puts her finger to her lips, then walks behind a large tree. He waits for her to reappear on the other side, but she doesn’t. It’s as if she’s just disappeared entirely. Has she gone to get help, or is she with them and simply went to get another sacrifice? Luke tries to remember what her name was and he realizes that he never got it. He has just been calling her the girl all this time and never realized that he hadn’t gotten her name. 

Footsteps sound on the stairs and he quickly moves over to the bed. He can hear the rusty lock click and screech before Fenris’s face peers around it. He grins and steps into the room. 

“You are in luck Luke of London. The gods have come to watch your sacrifice. Did you see them? Perhaps you will go to Valhalla if they deem so. Or join your faggot friends in Helheimr. More likely join them.”

Luke is confused at the words. Was he talking about the girl? Or last night when they mocked a sacrifice to Odin? He was still feeling tired, and his wrists and ankles were raw where the rope that had tied him to the cross had been. Fenris laughs, and shuts the door behind him leaving Luke alone with his thoughts.

Trying to piece the puzzle together, his mind drifted back to how odd the girl was. Her speech pattern wasn’t like the other Swedes they had met. It was as if she spoke an older language, with different rules, and had only recently started speaking English. Her mannerisms were off too. She carried herself differently than anyone else. Like she didn’t fit with modern society and was more at home in the woods. These old woods with the oppressive trees, and constant darkness. 

He curls up in the little box bed, murmuring to himself and he doesn’t notice when the little old woman with her loud feet walks in. When he does notice her, she’s carrying a tray with a crown of dead flowers and a different, cleaner dress. He can hear her say something to him in swedish. He wonders if he should tell her about the girl. Maybe she’ll know her name, or at least something that might hint to her identity. 

He rolls over in the bed again as she leaves, and tries to get back to sleep. It’s still night and he finally has the opportunity to get a semi-good rest. Luke wonders if he’ll have any more dreams or memories like the one he had earlier. He doesn’t know, but he hopes his racing mind will calm down enough for him to get to sleep. The wooden box bed is hard and uncomfortable, but he knows he shouldn’t complain. Not after the tents, not after his friends. Those fuckers had strung his friends up in the trees, brought him to see Dom’s corpse, and now were planning on sacrificing him to The Black Goat of The Woods; to It. On a wooden cross, like the fucking vikings, or romans, or some shit.

Even with all the thoughts and memories in his head, his eyes still feel heavy. Despite the piss-smell and the uncomfortable-ness it was still a bed. A luxury that he should be grateful to have. He closes his eyes, and tries to breath in through his mouth, and somehow manages to fall asleep for a second time.

* * *

Luke wakes the box bed, in that old wooden sturga yet the house is completely silent. No crazy black metallers, no old woman, no noises in the woods. Just plain, oppressive silence. The next thing he notices is the cold. His breath is steaming in the air, tiny ice crystals visible in the moonlight that shines through the tiny grimy window. He grabs the blanket and wraps it around himself, trying to keep the little warmth he has. There’s no frost on the furniture or anything, so the cold doesn’t make sense, how isn’t it affecting anything else. Why just him?

The door creaks open, and he can hear booted footsteps enter the room. But it isn’t the heavy ones of Loki or Fenris, or the loud ones of the old woman. He doesn’t think Surtr would ever enter the room. He looks at the door, and he almost jumps when he sees the girl. Is she stalking him, has she followed him and his friends through the woods. Why is she here, in this house, in these woods? She cocks her head at him, as if he’s a specimen in a museum, causing him to pull the blanket tighter over his body.

She’s dressed similarly to them with black boots, black ripped jeans, a band shirt reading Wardruna, and a black leather jacket. There’s no studs or spikes on her body, so he doesn’t know if she’s with them or not. He wants to ask her what’s her name, but the words die in his throat, as an icy chill overtakes his whole body as if he was dumped in an icy river or lake. 

He scrambles back, pushing himself into the corner of the box bed, not worrying about splinters from how old the wood was. She steps into the room, her footsteps echoing in the silence, as if she were walking in the hallowed halls of the dead. Helheimr Loki had called it. Helheimr where the souls of those that didn’t die in battle went. Helheimr the frozen home for the damned. The room felt clogged, as if there are more people in there than just the two of them. 

Something shines silver in her hand, and he can see a knife. His breath quickens and he starts to wonder if she is _It_. That thing in the woods behind the trees. If she is here to sacrifice him to herself. It’s as if she’s reading his thoughts, when she smiles and shakes her head no. He’s still curled up in fear when she goes and places the knife on the creaky wooden table under the mirror. Luke wonders if she intends for him to use it. Why else would she leave it there? Unless she meant to make it easier for the madmen or for him to take his own life. 

He’s too lost in his thoughts to see that she’s moved until he notices her standing over him. His mind once again raises the thought that she’s not human, that she’s one of the old gods that Loki and Fenris and the old woman follow. She’s paler than the Black metallers and her dark eyes definitely hold an otherworldly intelligence. Like she’s been to the other side and she knows what’s there. No person he’s ever met carries themself like that. He can’t put it into words, can’t describe it, but she just doesn’t fit. Doesn’t fit into this house, into this land, into this world. Not now, and not ever he thinks. 

She laughs and it’s a high cold laugh that reminds him of church bells, the type you’d hear ringing for a funeral or some shit. She kneels down, resting on the balls of her feet, and reaches out. Her touch is icy cold, reminding him of the polar bear swim Hutch had convinced him to try at the ass-crack of dawn in college. But there’s no Hutch here, no college swimming pool; just an icy cold touch and an odd woman with a name he doesn’t know. 

“You won’t die here Luke Richardson.” Her voice breaks the silence even more-so than her laugh. It sounds like the whispers of the dead but more substantial. “I like you, and I say you will not die here. You have _kurage_ in your soul. These children perverting the woods do not. Now wake. Wake and live.”

She lifts her hand from his face, and walks over to the door. The creaking echoes in the silence once more, making him worry that one of the other people in the house will wake and see them; see her and she’ll become another sacrifice. She turns around one more time, and smiles at him, then steps through the door. The noise sounds like a gunshot to Luke.

* * *

Luke wakes with a start, curled up in the corner of the bed. In the same position he had been in when the girl was there. The bone-chilling cold is gone. The cold that felt like the dead. He turns to the wooden table that rests underneath the mirror, and the knife glints there; silver in the light. It wasn’t a dream. Or it was and he’s slowly losing his mind. 

Out here under the black trees. Under the corpses of his mates; gutted and strung up in the trees as sacrifices to that _thing_ they worship. He wouldn’t be surprised if he’s lost it since they stepped into this godless place. Into these black woods with trees watered by the blood of countless people. 

And that girl. She can walk through the trees untouched. She’s not human. She never was. She never told him her name because he already knew it deep in his soul. In that little black place buried by everything else. 

_“Hel”_ his mouth breathes without even knowing it. Hel; Queen of the dead. Hel who collects the souls and brings them to Her hall. Hel daughter of Loki who is both kind and cruel. Hel who has been with them this entire trip, and maybe before back in London when they were planning. Hel who just gave him a knife. To get out. To Live. 

He almost laughs at the realization. But he doesn’t. He needs to be quiet if he will live. If he will get out. So he pulls himself out of the piss-smelling bed and walks over to the knife. Grasping it he sees it’s the knife Dom left back at the camp. She has a twisted sense of humor then. Leaving him his dead mate’s knife. Maybe then she’s also saying that they want him to get out when they couldn’t. Maybe, maybe, maybe. 

He walks down those narrow steps, really meant for only a child. Fenris is sleeping next to the wooden table. Black wood like the rest of the forest. The teen is cradling a knife to his chest like a little kid and their stuffed animal to keep the nightmares away. Fenris he can tell; will not be the easiest. 

Standing over the teen, he raises the knife. Hopefully it will be over quick. Hopefully the boy won’t suffer and his journey to Helheimr will be quick. He drops it down aiming for the exposed chest. Or the throat. The blade misses and slashes his chest. He wakes up, knife ready to strike. They fight; Luke managing to stab him a couple more times, before scrambling in a mad dash for the gun. The gun. The gun that probably took out his friends if they were feeling merciful that time. 

“Please Luke. Please.” Fenris croaks out. Clutching his wounds, begging like a small child. Please. The word echoes in Luke’s head. Please. His mates had probably begged something similar to Fenris. But they didn’t get mercy. The rifle appears to be a bolt action. He knows how to use a bolt action. He got lucky.

He pulls the trigger and it jams. He screams out in frustration not caring if the others wake. They’ve already heard the scuffle. Bashed Fenris over the head with the butt. Once, twice. He falls like a puppet with his strings cut. But he’s not dead. Luke knows he’s not dead. Maybe it’s a little gift from Hel while he’s in these woods. To know if his captors are dead or not. 

As he moves towards the stairs, Loki comes down, black smeared eyes heavy and swollen with sleep. Luke hits him with it, and grabs the blood slicked pocket knife. It slips between his fingers leaving a gash. He grabs it, despite the pain and stabs Loki in the stomach. 

The boy’s eyes widen and the only thing he can say is “Why Luke?” Why? Why? Why? He knows why. He killed Luke’s friends and hung them up in the trees. He kidnapped Luke and had been planning on sacrificing him to the creature. Luke decides he will tell him. Loki will know that you have to live and die by these rules. Hel did tell him that you have to exchange something if you take a life in these woods. 

“Why Loki? Why? You killed my friends and hung them, gutted like animals. They were husbands; fathers. They had families that they wanted to see. That they loved. You said it yourself Mercy is a privilege here. You made these rules and you can die by them.”

There’s a little switch label SAFETY, and he flips it. Hopefully it will shoot this time. He aims for the stomach, and it fires. Loki falls to the floor, clutching his bleeding abdomen. He looks paler now than he ever had with the cracked white face paint, _corpsepaint_ they called it. There’s screeching behind him, the old woman is rocking back and forth; her hands over her ears. He curses and storms up the stairs.

Surtr is cowering inside the open door to his right. She’s wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, her flat round feet bare. As he points the gun at her, she scuttles out of the room, looking at him in a mixture of hatred and fear. He leans the gun against the dresser, and digs through the pockets of the leather jackets strewn around the messy room. Loki’s jacket. The keys must be in Loki’s jacket. 

There’s a leather jacket with metal spikes, on the shoulders. Band names are painted and sewn on. Celtic Frost, Satyricon, Gorgoroth, Behemoth, Ov Hell, Darkthrone, Mayhem, and Blood Frenzy. The old slightly rusted keys are in the pocket. He almost screams and jumps in relief and finding them. He can get out, he can escape this forest. This ancient forest where something old and primal lurks in between the trees. He picks up the rifle knowing Fenris is alive downstairs and could probably still kill him; Surtr is out there too. Luke won’t risk it. Not when he’s so close. Not when he can escape. Escape and Live.

Almost running downstairs he nearly bursts out the door. His feet are slicked with blood from stepping on the pool that stemmed from Loki’s corpse. Fenris is crawling away from the house, blood streaming and leaving a trail where Luke had stabbed him. None of them will live, his mind thinks. If they live then he will die here. Or he gets out, but Dom, and Hutch, and Phil’s souls won’t know peace. He almost laughs at the thought. When did he start believing in souls? Since he had met a fucking death goddess, Luke guesses.

Before he reaches Fenris, he looks back at the stuga where he had been held captive. Surtr’s whitish moonish face peered out of the window of the room where he had been held captive. They lock eyes for a few seconds, and he can see shock present in her face. As if she can’t believe that someone’s finally fighting against them. It feels like hours before she breaks away and disappears from the window.

“Hey.” he says point the gun at Fenris’s head. “Hey man.”

Fenris stops crawling and looks up at him, fear shining in his eyes for the first time since Luke had been kidnapped by them. Blood speckled his face and he could tell that the boy wouldn’t last long, from the trail he had left. He’s tired now that the adrenaline is fading from his system, and he sits down around a meter from Fenris, because he can’t get close to him without feeling dizzy and sick. The handle of the hunting knife is sticking out from his throat moving up and down with every shuttering, gurgling gasp that he takes. Luke has to look away to the tree line, where he saw Hel before knowing who she was, to avoid being sick.

“I could get the truck running. It’s old but it must still run if you’re able to get out here. I have the keys. Put you in the back; I don’t know. The fucking road’s got to go somewhere……drive like a bastard to the nearest town. Fenris man, I’m gonna get out of here.”

He doesn’t know why he was rambling at a guy who tried to kill him, but he is. Fenris manages to prop himself up on an elbow, and arterial blood gushes onto the grass in front of him, and Luke has to keep himself from puking. The teen is clearly gasping for air, in from his mouth, nose and throat. 

He glances at the house; the front door is open. Surtr has to come down soon, she can’t have just stayed in that room forever. Though he can see from his spot in the paddock, through the front door, the house is empty aside from Loki’s corpse, lying in a pool of his own blood. The old woman’s just sitting by the old cast iron stove. He cranes his neck around to look in as much of the house as he can; trying to spot any movement. But nothing moves. The house, the stuga is completely empty.

“But it’s too late for that.” Luke’s voice surprises himself, with the amount of strength it carries. “”I don’t think the world has enough time for that. I don’t think you have enough time. It’s too late to understand, you know. Too late to re-educate, or to persuade anymore. You think this, I think that. The world’s too different to return to the way it was.”

Luke doesn’t know if Fenris is listening, but he is definitely alive. The fact that he is crawling towards Luke’s leg showed that.

“You kidnap, you murder, you sacrifice to this ancient thing. Can you expect any mercy from that? There are consequences to these things. I told Loki the same thing. You make these rules, and you have to live by them. You never thought about the people you killed. Did you? Even if you were caught, you would expect special treatment. That’s what fucks with me the most. And you would get it.

You know something Fenris. I did see one of the old gods. You aren’t wrong about the fact that they are still here. Because they are. I met her before I even stepped foot in this fucking place. She likes me Fenris, gave me the knife that I used to get out of this fucking house. I spoke with Hel Fenris, and she spoke back. And I don’t think she’d like it if I died here.”

Fenris gobbles at the air, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. He reaches for Luke’s leg again and convulses likely from blood loss. It would be just like putting an injured animal out of its misery. He lifts the gun, and shoots Fenris through the right eye. Blood, brain matter, and skull fragments explode outwards, and Luke almost pukes again.

He stands up, his legs shaking. He stops on the porch next to Loki’s corpse looking inside. The blood is leaking out now, little rivers snaking through the old wooden planks. Fuck he should have asked Loki or Fenris if they had any tabacco before killing them. He is feeling light-headed, soul-buoyant. The nausea may be related to the withdrawal. Wants this done, quick now. The whispers of the dead are barely audible in his ears but he can hear them.

“Surtr!”

No sound from upstairs in the dark house. He hopes she isn’t hiding with a knife waiting to stick him as revenge for her friends. _What to do? What to do? What to do?_

Bullets. How many? The gun is old, but there is a magazine before the trigger guard, so not as old as the house or any of the other weapons in the house. But he isn’t sure of how to detach it. And if he does manage to detach it and check the ammunition, would he even be able to re-attach it. These things are never simple. He needs a knife, a backup. And he doesn’t want to go outside to pull the hunting knife from Fenris’s throat. 

“Surtr! Loki’s gone. Your friends are gone. Dead! You hear me?”

Silence. Dead silence. Aside from the whispers of the dead, which are getting stronger.

He hikes up the dress, to look at the wound on his hip; it looks like a mouth with no lips, but gaping wide. New blood on old blood. He can’t look at it. The wound on his chest goes down to muscle. It’s so close it makes him feel faint and cold, and he has to look away. He doubles over and dares to close his eyes. Then straightens up, and steps over Loki’s body, and into the kitchen. 

He looks at the old woman, and she looks at him. She has the same piercing gaze as Hel. He knows that she could tell that Hel had spoken with him. Had marked him as one of her chosen. She hasn’t moved from the little cradle seat right next to the stove. Her gaze seems to hold the same message as the dead, expectancy, dissatisfaction at him, that he had work to do, was not finished. _But how? How to finish it?_ He wants to ask her. But she doesn’t speak english, can’t answer him, he can’t understand her. He doesn’t want to go up those child sized stairs, and into the tiny rooms with the low ceilings. It is no place for a half-dead man with no blood left inside him and a gun in his shaky white fingers. The girl could be waiting upstairs with a knife in her pudgy fingers, ready to stab him and end it. _Bitch_.

And the wounds. What is he to do with the wounds. He is considering showing it to the old woman. Show her the gaping mouth on his hip. But she isn’t looking at him anymore, she is looking at the wall. The wall opposite the stove, where the stairs are, and is nodding her shrunken leathery head. Luke frowns at her. She nods again raising her top lip in a snarl that shows her discolored teeth. 

When he looks at the wall, he hears the rusted hinges on the door moan and squeak across the hall. Surtr had come downstairs silently on those flat round feet and was waiting. Waiting in the room beside the door. Waiting for him to come out. She would have seen Loki lying in his own blood, Fenris too. 

He swallows and nervously moves backwards, holding the gun to his chest. Hesitating he wonders if he should go into the parlour. She’s waiting for him there though. The door has moved so she was in the room, or outside. Crouching down, he holds the gun tighter. Sneaking out of the house, Luke steps over Loki’s corpse then flattens himself into the grass and inches forwards. Standing up straight he peers into the dirty brown glass of the parlour windows. Too dim. The windows are too dim. Moving closer he holds his breath, praying to Hel, to whatever’s out there that he’s not noticed.

Surtr comes into view so quickly Luke nearly pulls the trigger. She is bent forward, crouched and facing the floor which is why she can’t see him. She’s dressed this time. Wearing jeans and a black t-shirt with an eligible band name. One ear against the door, listening intently, ready to stab him. Or smash him over the head. Or creep out and surprise him from behind as he searched that room. She is clever. And no other woman has wanted him, desired him so much. Dead. She desires his blood for that of her friends. 

The spirits of those sacrificed here were chanting the same thing over and over. _Shoot. Shoot. Shoot._ He boils, thinking about how she hadn't shown a single scrap of mercy to his friends. Or anyone else those fucked up teens had killed. The sweat runs cold down his face. Clenches and grits his teeth until they ache in his jaw, his gums sore. He raises the rifle to the window, making sure the safety switch is off, and fires.

The glass explodes. Shining rainbow shards fly through the air, and up goes Surtr. Up onto her toes like she had just been electrocuted. For a split second she is shaking like prey; all black hair, and white eyes big and, he almost thinks, scared. Something smashes inside, and it is gone. She cries out. Pain? Fear? 

Was she hit? _Was she hit? Was she hit?_ He can’t tell.

Up. Forward. Back. Down. He pulls the lever on the bolt and hopes that a bullet is in the chamber. When Luke looks up from the gun he sees she is gone. She has fled the parlour, shutting the door behind her.

He hobbles sideways around the paddock, careful to avoid the shards that had sprayed out onto the yard. And looks inside the house and hears the bump, bump, bump of her feet on the floor; somewhere out of sight. Probably in the kitchen. So he continues walking, sideways towards the truck. He’d shot the bitch through the glass so she is definitely bleeding. He doesn’t want to let any of them leave the black woods alive. Hel had given him a chance to live, and he has every intention of taking it. He can feel an eagerness, an excitement overtaking his body; leaving him sweat heavy and tingling all over. 

He can see her going out of the tiny back door in the kitchen and raises the gun, squinting along the iron sights on the rifle. He is desperate to fire it again. To end her. For his friends, and every other person she and her fucking friends had killed. But he doesn’t. Too risky and just easier to get to the truck. 

Moving towards the truck, Luke sees movement within the black trees of the orchard. She’s hiding there, near the rusted truck waiting. Maybe to sneak in and get him. He can’t tell. He just plans to get out of here. He has the gun, and can shoot her again if needed. The rifle sights swim in front of his vision. She’s running. Running towards the treeline. Towards that thing. Soon to be out of sight.

He moves, disappointed at the fact that he missed her, towards the truck. He should get out of here. Get out of these woods. Now. He has the keys, he can run, finally be free. Though the dead are still calling him to do something. One last thing inside the house where he had been held prisoner. He knows that he’ll have to go back inside, up, up into the rooms that cannot fit him. The rooms where she could creep up behind him and attack him. She could take him and have the old woman call that thing that lives behind the trees, and finally go through with sacrificing him. 

Slowly, slowly he makes his way up through the house, silently stepping around, trying to not make a sound. He doesn’t want to take any risks with anyone. Incase Surtr comes back or the old lady somehow manages to get a knife and stick him. Peering into the room where he had found the keys, he sees that there’s nobody inside. Good. Luke stumbles into the room where he was imprisoned, and sits down. He feels as if he’s moving through treacle. Hasit ever been this hot? The heat is a stark difference from the freezing cold that had been present when Hel had been there.

Luke stumbles to the window and manages to crack it open, a faint breeze helping to relieve the stifling heat. But even that doesn’t feel like enough. It’s surrounding him, filling his lungs and feeling thick and heavy. The house is swaying like a boat in rough water, and the rifle’s heavy. He grabs the hem of the bloodied dress and wipes the sweat off of the forehead. 

The smell of smoke drifts into the window, and he looks out onto the clearing. The old woman’s out there, a small fire burning not far from where the first one is. He shoulders the gun, and even though his wounds are burning and wet. Stumbling over Loki’s body, he gets out onto the lawn. The woman is swaying on her tiny feet, and humming. Not humming he realizes but singing. Singing an old lullaby. He doesn’t recognize the words, as it’s in swedish. She’s clapping out a simple beat with her hands. The same few lines repeating up and down, and he recognizes one word. Moder. _Mother._

Fear shoots through him when he realizes that she is summoning that thing behind the trees. Despite the heat, Luke feels like he’s been doused with ice water; like he’s been wrapped in Hel’s cold embrace. Clutching the gun, he steps back trembling. 

“No.” He speaks without knowing it. “No. Please.” Luke knows he’s pleading with deaf ears. She won’t stop the summoning. Though a part of him welcomes it. His body is heavy with exhaustion as the adrenaline has left. He’s witnessed things no one should ever see. Forced to find the corpses of his friends; nearly sacrificed. A part of him welcomes the release of death that would come with being sacrificed. He almost drops to his knees, almost kneels down to die for _Moder_ and her children. But he doesn’t; he won’t. He has to get out. Get out of the black forest with that thing behind the trees, get out and live. Steadying himself with the gun, he lifts it up and tries pleading with her again. He realized that a small part of him doesn’t want to shoot her. She was the only person who showed him any semblance of kindness in this godforsaken forest. Though he knows she won’t listen he still tries anyways.

“I said no ma’am. Please.” His index finger finds itself in the little trigger ring in the gun while he aims it at her. He has already killed two people, but he is exhausted and doesn’t know if he could do it again. 

She continues wailing and singing into the sky. A child's lullaby is what it sounds like. He stands watching as she lifts her dusty hands into the sky, calls out the old name. The name of the Black Goat of The Woods. He understands the message here, even without the dead whispering into his ears _“When the time comes will you sing with us?”_

Luke can’t take it anymore. The heat, the wounds, the rushes of adrenaline that flow through his body. It’s all too much. He stumbles back inside, his stomach churning and he can fee; bile rising in his throat. It stings his throat and he coughs. He wants to pass out. His vision doubles and he leans over. Waves of feeling hot then cold wash over him. It is all too much for him. His mind is in chaos swirling around with thoughts back and forth, back and forth. Realization hits him almost as strong as the nausea. The little old woman has been using him. She wants the teens that invaded her woods out. They had come in with their black metal and pagan beliefs and ordered her around to make food and summon the creature so they could sacrifice it. They were an infection that stuck around, a flu that just wouldn’t leave. She had played the waiting game, biding her time, pretending to be under their thumb until someone could rid her of the teens. 

And him, hadn’t Luke played his part perfectly? They had killed his friends and taken him to be the sacrifice. And he had killed them in revenge. She had used him to get the invaders out. Out of her house, out of her woods, out of life. He had followed the steps laid out for him, not even knowing it. He had become a willing sacrifice; dressed for the part. God she had even laid out the crown of flowers and the dress. Now she was summoning that thing. _Moder_ . Now she is ready for him to die. His fate has always felt like it had been predetermined. And here is where it’s expected to end. Here for the Black Goat of The Woods and it’s little old child calling mother home. Ice cold sweat runs down his neck as he thinks _“God no.”_

He will not, cannot, die here. He has to get out. He has to live. Live for Phil, for Dom, for Hutch; for his friends who were mercilessly killed within these woods. He has to get out so that they will not be left rotting here, under the black trees. He steadies himself, and raises the rifle aiming at her back. The sights shake and tremble as he aims for the bony shoulder blades. He knows that it’s Blood Frenzy responsible for the murders of his friends, but if they hadn’t come to her, if they hadn’t had her summon that thing then they would still be alive. This shouldn’t have happened, these things shouldn’t exist, shouldn’t ever happen. Should not be. His mates should still be alive.

Hutch enters his mind. Poor Hutch, the one who had suggested this trip. Hutch the first to go; hanging pale and bedraggled and naked and hanging between spruce branches. Dom with his arms above his shoulders, trying to stave off the near constant rain, before he too was butchered, and opened like an animal by a hunter, and strung up in the trees. He thinks of Phil with his injured knee, tatty and looted; the hood of his waterproof jacket still up to keep him dry, even in death. The faces of his mates after they were gutted stare back at him, glassy eyed and almost accusingly, as if it’s his fault they died. And the sound of thin, mummified, brown, bodies twitching in an attic that should not exist enters his mind. It’s enough horror for him. Enough that he steadies the gun and fires. She falls. Falls as if pushed by a hand on her back; making a sound as if all the air in her was pushed out. Red blooming on the back of her homespun dress. He shot her in her little heart. He knows that.

Almost as if compelled he walks over to her tiny corpse, seemingly tinier in death than she was in life. The world is silent like the last time Hel had visited him. No animals, no birds, no breeze, no noise. The forest is silent and still. It is holding its breath waiting for something to happen. The sky for once, has stopped swelling with it’s clouds full of rain. The birds held their beaks and the animals laid down their heads. They were waiting. He looks down at her tiny tiny corpse. The hem of the dusty dress is hiked to her knees. Her legs are unclothed and covered in coarse white hair. The skin was pinkish like a baby’s. The knees bent the wrong way, backwards like a four legged animal. At the end of her small goatish legs were little white hooves. Her tiny loud feet. A child of the Black Goat of The Woods lays dead on the grass.


End file.
